Sister's Quilt Show in Oregon - 2 quilts entered

I decided it might be fun to enter a quilt or two into Sister's Quilt Show in Oregon this year. This morning I got confirmation that the two I decided to enter were accepted. Anyone can enter their quilts, so I did not think I would be declined entry. It will just be fun to say, "This quilt was displayed at the Sister's Quilt Show." Woo woo!

Here are the two I entered. The Castle one is a quilt I am really proud of. I do a lot of applique quilts, but this was probably the most complicated. I took a class from Barbara Olson last spring through my quilt guild here in Sacramento. She taught us how to make it and got us started. After I finished the initial block, I was not sure what kind of border to put on it. I decided to put the paper pieced border you see on it. I think it added a nice touch to the quilt. Right now the quilt is hanging over a staircase in our house.

The other quilt I call African Batik. I purchased the star fabric at an African store in Fort Bragg California several years ago. I could not decided how to use it. Finally last year I put it together in this quilt. I quite like the colors and am surprised I actually purchased that bright yellow fabric for the background. I usually like more subdued colors. But there it is!

This one is currently on my wall in my living room. Lorena will have to get that down for me, so I can get it sent off to Sisters Oregon.

I don't know if I am going to Sister's this year. Maybe now that I have to go since I two quilts entered in it.

Above is my Castle quilt on the quilting frame while it was being quilted.

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Quilts from Paducah, continued

More quilts to post:

 There were a lot of quilts submitted from people that reside in Japan. At first glance you would think this one was given the theme of the paneled quilt. It was made by Karen Turnbull from Laguna Niguel California. She named it Red Temples. I love how she hooked the three panels together with a pagoda style beam at the top.

The above quilt is named appropriately Skyline. Claudia Scheja from Werne North Rhine-Westphalia Germany made this beautiful quilt. Love the different skylines she incorporated in the border from different cities around the world.

Advance to Tomorrow by Miycko Watanabe from Kobe Japan is another city-scape. I love the city, ocean, mountains and sky. I would be interested to hear the quilter's explanation of the star eclipsing the town.

 Here is The Woman by Kyoko Ochiai from Ota Tokyo Japan. Reminds me of 1950/60's women styles you would see in advertising. I really like the design.

I was alone at the show. The thought I had when I saw this quilt and would have shared if there had been someone there to share my thoughts with would have been, "Here is a quilt design I would never make but would love to have in my home." I am not a blue person but I can overlook that with the colors that are throughout this quilt. It is called Supernova and made by the Annapolis Quilt Guild of Annapolis Maryland.

 Gladiolas (I think). I am not a flower person but I think that is what these are. Whatever they are I would love to have them growing in my garden. It is called In the Height of Summer and made by Hatsue Abe and 10 Friends from Setagaya Tokyo Japan.

Flamingos always make me smile. I love these multicolored flamingos. How sweet they are. It was made by Kazue Kamura and 10 Friends from Setagaya Tokyo Japan. It is entitled Family of Rainbow-Colored Flamingo.

Another beautiful garden-scape. Love the kitty and cat on the sill at the bottom of the quilt. This is called Japanese Summer and made by Sachico Kumano and 11 Friends from Setagaya Tokyo Japan.

Those of you who know me know that I love Halloween! I love Halloween quilts more than any other. The quilt above and the close up below is not one of my most favorite Halloween quilts, but it is a charming one. I love how the quilter added three dimensional items to the quilt, as you can see in the block below. Halloween Party was made by Noriko Nishikawa and 11 Friends from Setagaya Tokyo Japan.

Some quilts just do not photograph as nicely as they display in reality. The above quilt is one of those. This quilt is truly stunning. The colors work well together. Yet not so much in the photograph. It was made by Tomoko Takauchi and 15 Friends from Setagaya Tokyo Japan. They call it A Bouquet. Click to enlarge to see the quilting on it. It looks like each block was quilted in and of itself. Since it was a quilt made by multiple people, perhaps each quilter quilted their own block. It works nicely though.

International Sun Bonnet Sue. My daughter has this pattern. I have looked at it several times and thought I would like to make a version of it. There are so many Sun Bonnet Sue's in the pattern book, you have to choose which ones to make. Otherwise the quilt would cover three beds easily. As you can see the Sues are small but each one is so charming in and of itself. I love how the quilter included the nationality of the Sue and the maker of the block in the two blocks at the bottom middle of the quilt. This was an international Sun Bonnet Sue Swap quilt. What fun that must have been to receive the different blocks in the mail. This was put together by Vicki's Friends Pszczyna Poland.

The above two pictures represent a quilt called Vintage Blocks -- Tossed But Not Forgotten. As quilters we often have what I call orphan blocks. They are blocks that we made but they didn't work into the quilt that they were planned for or we made too many or it was too small or whatever the reason they just sit around by themselves. I love how this quilter put them together into a quilt. Best of all I love how they were quilted. Look at the top picture up close - click it to see even better. The quilter is Jane V Cole and Quilters from Waynesville North Carolina.

This has been fun going through these quilts. It has made me want to work on more of my quilts. I have so many unfinished quilts and quilt kits and patterns I have purchased, some with fabric and some without. I just need to get something out and work on it or at least finish one. Maybe I will go do that now.

I will post more Paducah quilts at another time. Thanks for looking.

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Quilts at Paducah [version 1]

I have been back from Paducah for weeks now and I still have not gone through all my photographs! I am going to post them as I edit them since I took close to 600 photos my week in Paducah and traveling around Tennessee and Kentucky.

One of the cautions about taking photos at the quilt show was that if we posted them on the internet, we should give credit to the creator of each quilt. I will do that to the best of my ability here. Know also I did not take a picture of every quilt there. There were so many of them.

My first day at the quilt show I went directly into the main exhibit hall to see the quilts. As that day and the next went on, I found there were two more exhibit halls in that building and another building a little ways away that had even more. Oh my goodness.

The first quilt I saw in the main exhibit hall is the horse quilt above. I know I am going to use the same descriptive words over and over as I tell about the quilts I saw. This quilt was amazing! Even as I look at the pictures I am amazed it is a quilt. It was made by Laurie Britt from Bakersfield CA. To take all these pictures, I used our Nikon camera. I was so impressed by this quilt and the next one, I wanted to share them immediately. I also took pictures of them with my phone so I could text them to different people right way. My daughter is a horse person. I sent this to her. She immediately texted me back asking me to bring it home to her. "Yeah sure." Someone might notice me taking a quilt down and walking out with it, especially since it is the first display you see as you walk in. She is a quilter, too, so I told her to just make one of her own. Her answer back to me was the same I had given her, "Yeah, sure!"

The quilt above was made by Hiroko Miyama and Masanobu Miyama from Chofu Tokyo Japan. The title is Duck Face. It is a lovely quilt. The child looks angelic. The dog looks somewhat like my son's dog, Dexter. It was hanging in the same display as the horse quilt. These two quilts started my jaw dropping excursion through the quilts.

Above is Crossing Over done by Lea McComas of Superior Colorado. To see this quilt up close is to see some remarkable thread play. The rider's hair looks like it was truly braided.

How beautiful this quilt is. Click on this or any of the pictures to see them up close. Look at the quilting on this quilt by Karlyn Bue Lohrenz of Billings Montana.

These are just four of the hundred or so quilts I took pictures of. More to come.

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Service auction quilt

In December our church ladies auxiliary holds a service auction. It is great fun. Since we are a non-profit, we cannot bid using money. Someone came up with a way to earn points and use our points for bidding. To determine our points, they hand out a sheet at the beginning of our monthly evening meeting. On this sheet are different statements with points attached. If you accomplished the statement, you were allowed to claim however many points that are listed for that statement. Such as "I prayed this morning - 5 points." Or "I made my bed today - 2 points." They have about 50 statements to answer. After claiming the points for each statement, we add up how many points we can use. Usually they add up to between 400 and 500 points. You can not "bet" more than the points you have and you have to subtract points if you "buy" something with them.

This year I was top bidder for a box of pens that someone had decorated AND a group of handmade greeting cards, which I gave to my mom. She loves to write notes and send birthday greetings to everyone she knows. When all was said and done I still had over 100 points to use.

There were other things available to bid on. One is a lemon chiffon cake one of the church members offers up. I won it last year. She will make it whenever you ask her to as long as you give her 24 hours. Oh my gosh that cake is good. We have a couple of massage therapists. They always offer up a massage. Same with a hair stylist offering her services. Some people make sweets or blankets or quilts or other things and those items go home that evening with the successful bidders.

This year I didn't have anything ready to take that night, which I how I prefer to offer my "service." So I typed up a sheet that I would be willing to make a quilt that would be approximately 45" x 60" in the color of their choice. I put a caveat on it that it wouldn't be made until the end of January at the earliest. This activity was held the first Tuesday of December. I didn't want someone wanting to give the quilt as a Christmas present. The lady that won the bidding on the quilt was my previous visiting teacher. She has been to my home many times and knows the quality of work I do. She saved up all her points and used every last one to win this auction item. She was so excited to get it.

She asked it to be in blues and yellows. She has someone in her family that is expecting a baby boy. So I couldn't make it with lots of flowers and fancy designs. I spent about an hour at Beverly's yesterday going through their fabrics coming up with the color combination I liked. I had considered taking the winner with me and letting her choose the fabrics, but I was there and wanted to get started on it. Sorry. It became my choice. I hope she likes it.

I bought 1/3 yard of nine fabrics. I cut each one into four 10" squares. I will now sew the squares into four large nine patch blocks with the white square in each block.

Other than the white being in each center, I want the blocks to be random in how the colors are placed. I learned a long time ago with quilting that if you want things to be random, you better plan it somewhat. So I took each fabric and attached it to a paper and assigned a number and a color crayon to it. Then I drew out my nine patch blocks times four and randomly colored each block in. Later I will sit down and sew the blocks together using the "randomly" selected guide.

After sewing the blocks together into four separate nine patch blocks, I will cut each one in half and then in half again. And then they will be sewn back together again in some pattern that strikes me at the time.

I like this pattern. I learned it while I attended a class hosted by Meissner's Sewing Center here in Sacramento in 2014 and featuring Eleanor Burns. It is relatively easy but makes the quilt look like you did a lot of piecing. It is a great way to show off beautiful fabric because most of the blocks stay in relatively large pieces.

I will share the finished quilt when I get it all put together.

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